After a few months of relatively inactive flying, I discovered my flight review had expired. Although my flight instructor and I flew often over the last two years, they never signed off a BFR for me, and it had been more than 24 months since my last one. Scheduling my favorite club airplane and instructor to knock out this project was proving to be too much of a challenge for everyone involved, so I bit the bullet and placed myself at the mercy of a local training facility. I’m glad I did.
First off, I was reunited with a Cessna 172, steam-gauge only, please. The oldest, cheapest 172 on the line proved to be a good choice. I might have had more flight time in 172s than the CFI I rode with had in total, but they were a good choice, too. To spice it up—and at least partly owing to competing schedules—we decided to do this at night. Since it had been a while since I had three landings, and hadn’t been night current since LED landing lights were invented, we met at the FBO around dusk and did the flying in the dark.
